All courses are conducted and evaluated in a continuous & internal manner by the faculty who teach these courses. The student registers for a certain number of courses each semester; the year being divided into two semesters, and a summer term, whenever offered. A faculty member, as registration advisor, helps a student to draw up his programme, suitable to his pace and needs, which is made possible by the course wise time-table of the Institute. Every student gets, incidentally, a training in decision making through (i) choice of load, i.e. number of courses per semester to suit his/her pace, (ii) selection of his/her own time-table to suit his/her convenience, and (iii) picking up courses as electives to meet his/her own aspirations. It is the responsibility of the student to attend classes regularly and to maintain a required level of scholastic standing.
The performance of a student in each course is assessed by the teacher by means of continuous evaluation throughout the semester in classwork, periodical quizzes (sometimes unannounced), tests (both open and closed book), tutorials, laboratory work, homework, seminars, group discussions, project, etc., and a comprehensive examination at the end of the semester. The student is thereby given a large number of opportunities to carryout various academic assignments and be evaluated. Besides encouraging and rewarding continuous and systematic study, the system provides a constant feedback to the student as to where he/she stands, thus enabling him/her to cultivate regular habits of studying and preparing himself/herself for the future.
The system discards the conventional emphasis on a single final examination and numerical marks as the only absolute indication of the quality of student's performance. Thus, at the end of the semester the teacher of the course awards letter grades A, A-, B, B-, C, C-, D, E to the student based on the total performance of the student and it is relative to the performance of others taking the same course. These letter grades stand for quality of performance: A (Excellent), A- (Very Good), B (Good), B- (Above Average), C (Average), C- (Below Average), D (Poor) and E (Exposed). Further, these letter grades have points associated with them in a quantified hierarchy: a maximum of 10 (for an A) to a minimum of 2 (for an E). There are also courses in which the teacher awards non-letter grades which have only a qualitative hierarchy. The teacher may also pronounce the performance of a student in a course in terms of certain reports which should not be misconstrued as grades.
A student is deemed to have cleared a course if he/she obtains a grade in the course. However, the educational philosophy of the Institute interlinks and at the same time distinguishes between the performance of a student in a single course and his/her overall cumulative performance. The overall performance of a student is indicated by an index known as the “Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA)”. It is the weighted average of the grade points of all the letter grades received by the student since his/her entry into the Institute and is expressed on a 10-point scale.
The minimum academic requirements regarding the performance and progress for the Higher Degrees are:
1.A CGPA of at least 5.5 at the end of every semester
2.No E grade in the higher degree programmes.
3. The pace of progress of a student should be such that at any stage of reckoning he/she should not have spent more than 50% extra time than what is prescribed for him/her upto that stage in his/her programme.